


First Month Back

by pushupindrag



Series: Parts [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Post-Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushupindrag/pseuds/pushupindrag
Summary: It's the first month back at the Burrow after the battle.The first month back is awkward and full of silence. Horrible, unbreakable silence.





	First Month Back

**Author's Note:**

> This whole entire 'series' is just self indulgent angst and i'm okay with that.... Most people get over Harry Potter and here's me still here in 2017, wow......

The first month back is awkward and full of silence. Horrible, unbreakable silence.

 

The first night had been hell. Grief had seemed to drive most of them mad. There had been so much death, it was hard not to succumb to it.   


The madness had given way to the unsettling quiet after a few days. The hysterics had stopped, the vomiting the outbursts the sobs that went on and on into the early hours of the morning, the drunken blackout afternoons and lack of anything other than outright anger or sorrow, the violent quiet that came from a few of them waiting to burst under the skin as they all seemed to prowl around one another, itching for a fight that never came.

 

Molly had placed a stone at the bottom of the garden once she had calmed her never ending sobs into silent whimpers, a slab of polished stone with etched names. Surrounded with more protective magic than it could possibly ever need.

 

Fred Weasley  
Remus Lupin   
Tonks   
Severus Snape   
Lavender Brown   
Colin Creevey   
Dobby

 

There had been names added after the order had been added by Molly and George, by shaking hands as Harry remembered the faces of his friends, by Ron as he remembered the girl he could have sworn he had been in love with at one point. Everyone had added their own spells, unneeded for protection but desperately wanted as a way to protect what they had now, making up for what they ultimately couldn’t protect when it had mattered.

 

Charlie had gone straight back to Romania, not even spending the night at the Burrow. Bill had been the one to make sure he wouldn’t fly drunk. Bill had stayed, with Fleur going back to France a few days after the battle to be with her family.

 

Percy had locked himself in his room.

 

George flitted around the Burrow, sleeping in Bill’s room on the floor. Not wanting any comfort, not even from a bed. He spent a lot of time at the kitchen table, writing and writing and writing. Or down by the stone in the garden, just talking.

 

Ron was avoiding everybody, taken to cleaning the attic and make friends with the ghoul. He was ignoring everything around him. Calls to meals, calls for a cup of tea or a chat. He had to clean, to sort.

 

He moved onto the garage when he had finished the attic.

 

Hermione stayed in hers and Ginny’s room. Barely coming down for food.

 

Harry stayed with Ginny when Ginny wasn’t sitting quietly with George. But for the most part Harry stayed downstairs, and he only went upstairs to sleep.

 

Molly had gone into full mothering mode despite her obvious heartbreak. Cleaning and cooking and knitting by hand, something to try and drown the thoughts in her head.

 

Arthur was back and forth from the Ministry, often with Kingsley by his side. Kingsley had started sleeping on their couch.

 

The Burrow was a home and safe haven to those who didn’t feel safe anywhere else.

 

Hogwarts teachers flitted in and out, Hagrid spending most of his time there. Quietly sitting wherever he was needed. A shoulder to cry on, not wanting to anything other than help. Helping made him feel better, but if he spent most of his time in silence with Harry, nobody was going to say anything.

 

Seamus and Dean visited once a week and a half in, checking in on everybody before flitting off again. They ad been holding hands and both had desperate looks on their faces, as if they were there to make sure everybody was still alive, rather than to make sure they were okay.

 

Nobody spoke to one another other than to ask if they needed anything, and if they did it was barely above a whisper.

 

Slowly, things around the Burrow got fixed. The kettle from where Ron had thrown it out of the window, the old tv set from where George had put his foot through it. The holes in the wall from frustrated punches or hysterical kicks. Nobody in the Burrow had violent tendencies, but grief affects everybody differently. And apparently Ginny, Ron and George were a violent trio in grief.

 

That was why Ron had turned to cleaning. He had a hands on approach to fixing things, ignoring how Bill would quietly go in wherever he had been to actually fix them properly rather than the botched job Ron had performed. But he was learning, slowly. And cleaning was therapeutic in a way he could never have imagined.

 

Organising was good for him, sorting things into their correct order, grouping things by type and importance, cleaning as he went.

 

He had also started writing.

 

Hermione had suggested it, to a room full of people who were slowly coming down from outright grief.

 

“There’s these things we, uh muggles have called therapists, they’re there to help. To talk to people to help with their problems.” She had shook her head at that, retreating back into her chair, pulling her knees up.

 

Ron had reached out from where he was sitting next to Harry, resting his hand on her knee before she jerked it away. “I went to one when I was younger, for bullying and stuff. It really helped.” It’s like she’s ashamed to admit it, talking to her knees despite the whole room listening. “I got told to keep a journal to write everything down, thoughts feelings dreams nightmares everything. It helped. Maybe we should start doing that.”

 

She casts a look at Ginny who had retreated even frther at the thought from under her brothers arm. George had just pulled her closer.  


“Oh Ginny, i’m sorry-”

 

“No I uh, i’ll just make sure it’s not possessed first huh?” And she chuckles the fakest chuckle everyone in that room had ever heard but she was Fred and George’s younger sibling through and through. Trying to lighten every situation, and maybe one day it would work.

 

So they had all been writing, and Hermione had been right.

 

It didn’t help everything, because nothing ever would. But it helped enough that the Burrow seemed to lose it’s edge of hysterics.

 

George did nothing but write these days. He could barely do anything else.

 

Hermione was trying to do things, trying to help. But she couldn’t. Her arm burnt constantly, scabs that she picked at and picked at and picked at, leaving everything a bloody mess before sneaking to the bathroom to clean herself up. The curses and mad shrieks of Bellatrix flow freely through her head, and she’s not sure if her hands ever stop shaking.

 

Ginny stays with George, both writing late into the night at the kitchen table, always there to share a look. Neither spoke. It was enough for them just being together. Fred and George had always been there to look out for her. So she was going to be there for George.

 

They slept on Bill’s bedroom floor together. Bill having given a mattress to Ginny when she had refused the bed. They had tried to get George a mattress too but he had refused so flatly they hadn’t tried again.

 

Harry never entered that room, but he trailed Ginny whenever he needed to be around someone. Most of the time he stayed on his own, going for walks around the Burrow’s area or holing himself up in his and Ron’s room.

 

Arthur and Molly would have hushed conversations into the night, every night when Arthur would come home for a few hours. They spoke of nothing, everything, they just needed to hear one another’s voices.

 

But they mostly talked about how their family would fare now. Because their family was no longer just blood. It was Harry, Hermione, Fleur, Luna, Hagrid, Mcgonagall and everyone else who wandered through their doors. Neither were sure if anything would ever be okay again.


End file.
